Chapter 937: Chapter 937: War Song, Operational—With a Few Quirks
I don’t know how to address the still grumbling and nagging shipborne AI. She is still Visca’s flagship from years ago, but now half of her identity is as an auxiliary processor for the War Song. Maybe I should just call her War Song?
Alright, I won’t worry about titles for now. I’ll just call her "that thing" until she can speak properly, although this term isn’t very polite for a female-attributed AI. But honestly, I don’t think that thing has even a bit of potential to be considered a woman. Have you ever seen a woman who’s two and a half meters tall and can bicker with someone in various dialects for half an hour straight?
"This time, she’s really outdone herself. Usually, she can only cuss for thirty minutes, and now already thirty-one minutes have passed, and she seems to have plenty of adjectives left," Taville gaped at the communicator in disbelief. Without my command, she couldn’t cut off the communication from the other side and could only express various forms of shock at the barrage of vulgarities coming her way. "Perhaps it’s related to her learning ability. It seems that this shipborne AI possesses advanced evolution functions. When she was first created, she was probably just like any ordinary ship mainframe without self-awareness, but now she has her own independent personality. Though General Visca’s modifications are a bit chaotic, one can’t deny they’re creative."
"Can she really play the core role of the War Song?"
I pondered for a moment and raised my doubt.
The shipborne AI of Visca’s flagship back in the day is indeed a notable title and indicates that crazy being possibly has exceptional capabilities. But no matter how powerful she is, in the end, she’s just the mainframe of a regular warship, and there’s no comparing that to a giant flagship like the War Song, as planet battleships and ordinary ships differ fundamentally in both structure and performance. Additionally, that thing is designed during Visca’s mad years, and though it might not have been designed solely by him, it certainly bears much of Visca’s imprint. Frankly, this makes me even more skeptical of her capacity to control the War Song effectively.
"According to the data, she definitely cannot handle the core responsibilities of the War Song," Taville tapped on her information terminal, "She’s powerful, but compared to the computational speed and floating-point scale required by a planet battleship, she falls very short. However, her expansibility is strong, and she learns incredibly fast, even possessing the rare ability to write usable drivers based on newly encountered unknown devices. Although her drivers can’t compare to the originals, for the War Song, which is almost entirely non-operational, any command that gets a device running is invaluable. That’s why I positioned her in the starship’s core. Due to performance constraints, she can only be an auxiliary mainframe; the War Song’s core mainframe remains the original—like adding a processing accelerator to the central processing unit."
"Wasn’t the core mainframe of the War Song already broken?" I asked, a bit confused.
"Not entirely broken, just missing various interface programs," Taville corrected my misunderstanding, "The core mainframe of a starship is tough to destroy. Even if it crashes, once operational again, it can slowly repair itself automatically. The current situation is that the core mainframe has successfully started, but much of its critical data is ruined with no backup, causing it to function but not know how to control its original body. Theoretically, that is."
"So, that thing serves as both an auxiliary processor and a signal repeater," I began to understand, "Using her fast driver-writing ability, you got the War Song running in a ’soul-out-of-body’ state."
"Soul-out-of-body, a very subtle metaphor," Taville nodded happily, "Ah, Your Majesty, she seems to have stopped."
With Taville’s reminder, I realized that the foul-mouthed shipborne AI, who had ranted for forty minutes, had quieted at some point. Completely silenced wasn’t possible; she wasn’t cussing anymore but was still wailing weird noises in the communication channel, causing the War Song to act strangely. The massive planetary surface fluctuated with ghost energy forming a lightning storm, constantly under the AI’s control, morphing into bizarre patterns—a moment an S, then a B, and later even a skull before transforming into a crying fool’s face...
I was stunned, watching the bizarre scenes across the majestic War Song. The crazy AI was venting her frustration through the only device she could directly control: the armor discharge tube. After watching for a while, I poked at Taville’s mass projection: "You see, if Sandora saw this, she might end up eating you with sauce."
Taville thought for a moment, responding with the rigor of a scientist: "Considering the mental shock this scene would cause to Her Majesty Sandora, I believe she wouldn’t need sauce. Theoretically."
Me: "...Let’s just have a chat with this AI."
"Nothing to talk about, nothing to talk about! Let me out of this ship immediately! Out!" The counterpart had been monitoring the communication channel and instantly shouted, "I’ve had it with being cooped up with this stiff, dull ’2B’ mainframe inside the same shell! It can’t even swear! You should prepare a new body packed with main cannons and bombs for me, not a bunch of dumbass slots and a pile of junk equipment that needs a good kick to move! Damn it, I used to have four hundred and thirty main cannons back in the day! How did I end up in your hands... Where is the General? Where did you hide the General?"
"Do you really believe I won’t dismantle your ass if you don’t quiet down?"
I was overwhelmed by the ruckus this thing was causing. Who knows where she gets all this energy; I suspect she was a poet in her past life. How else could such a vile mouth be cultivated without writing essays for thirty or fifty years?
"Dismantle? Hahaha, dismantle! If you’re afraid of death, you’re not a true soldier! If this ship backs down today, I’ll take your last name! You’ve got the guts to launch this ship into EOP-03! I’d smear your face and thank your ancestors... hey, wait a minute, who the heck are you, and who’s this woman with nothing good except her face and chest? What is this place? Isn’t this ship supposed to be fighting? How did I end up in your hands?"
I was dumbfounded on the spot. I’d seen muddled ones before but never this confused. At first, I thought this thing remembered everything, but turns out she doesn’t even know the battle has ended, crazy and forgetful just like Visca back in the day. They really are like master and servant. As I sighed, I felt a bit sour: she’s a madman, did I just get insulted for nothing?
"I’m Visca’s brother." I rubbed my nose and said to the madman on the other side of the communicator.
"Visca? What’s that thing?" The other party was instantly puzzled, "Your sister?"
I was in tears, only then remembering that Visca was a name she gave herself. Back in the day, Visca had no name, what a mess. Didn’t that thing just curse again?
"Visca is your General... never mind, you definitely won’t believe it. I’ll call her over in a bit, she should be fighting with her sister right now." I waved my hand, connecting with Visca’s spiritual connection before the madman on the War Song could react, letting her come over, and asked what she was doing. Sure enough, she was engaged in post-cooking exercise with Pandora, and this time the exercise was divided into Group A and Group B, with Chiruno pitted against Lilina. The reason was Lilina tricked Chiruno into drinking vinegar, and now that Ice Fairy smells like old Shanxi vinegar, even on her wings.
See, I said letting Big Sister return early was wise, otherwise those little ones would have dismantled the whole house.
"Brother, brother!" Visca’s cheerful voice arrived even faster than she did from the teleportation gate, then a small figure swished across the air, hitting my chest solidly, and I held her casually. Looking down, a pair of blood-red cat eyes were flashing with excited red light, gazing at me. Despite being held, Visca kept trying to climb higher, excitedly shouting, "Won, won! This time I defeated that silly sister!"
Is it really fun for these sisters to fight all day?
And Visca’s next words made me uneasy: "Bingdisi’s sister taught some really good tactics, made a swift victory!"
"What did that female hooligan teach you?" I felt my voice tremble as if suddenly realizing my obedient and sensible sister suddenly went to attack the Pentagon with a kitchen knife—though what Visca usually does is way worse.
"Gouging eyes, biting ears, spitting in the mouth, scratching underarms, prepare a can of super glue in advance, and feign injury..."
I immediately contacted Sandora: "Girl, I’ve got a major task for you: sneak strong glue and chili oil into Bingdisi’s feather care liquid, then beat her up, and I’ll make you a roasted whole whale when it’s done."
And then the world became peaceful.
"See, this is your General."
Having settled the household issue, I pushed Visca in front of me and spoke to the communicator.
"Whoa, you’ve woken up?" Visca was surprised to recognize her former deputy officer’s signal, even though the signal from the War Song made her show a strange expression, the little girl soon forgot about it, happily greeting her deputy officer.
"...General?"
From the communicator, the shocking voice of the shipboard AI came through. Truth be told, after so long, this was my first time hearing it speak without curse words, it was truly unbelievable. Seems the only way to tame this unruly AI is if Visca does it; Taville and I couldn’t do it even if we tried till we die.
"What are you doing here... Wait! Battle! We’re still in battle! General, please allow this ship to return to the front line. The fleet is organizing one last charge, and the battlefield cannot be without the flagship! General, please give the order..."
"The battle is over. You were salvaged from the battlefield and have just been restarted." General Visca suddenly interrupted the other party’s hurried words and said calmly.
"It’s over? Over, what was the outcome then? Ah, this ship has truly been derelict, not even knowing this. May I ask what the battle result was?"
Visca laughed, "We won, we won."
"Ha, that’s good. We have many good lads; we were bound to win. So, is this a repair center? When can this ship return to the fleet?"
"No... it’s no longer necessary... the fleet is gone; it was a pyrrhic victory." Even Visca’s expression darkened when mentioning the final battle, and the AI on the other side of the communicator fell silent for a moment before suddenly becoming excited again, "No problem, no problem. They did well, another pyrrhic victory just like before. It’s really all in the General’s style. But since it’s not the first time, let’s find a desolate universe and rebuild an army. There will always be battles to fight; you needn’t worry, this ship will always..."
"No need," Visca cut off the other party’s babbling again and snuggled against me, "With my brother here, we don’t have to wander anymore. This is my brother, and you’re in his warship now."
After Visca’s words, an unprecedented long silence came from the other side. For a full ten seconds, there was no sound from the communicator. I even wondered if the other party had simply crashed, but before I could open my mouth to ask, the shipborne AI finally returned to its senses and asked intermittently, "General, are you serious?"
"Yes, I’ve been with my brother for a long time now." Visca immediately nodded and replied.
The other party was silent again for a few seconds and then suddenly asked loudly, "Alright, that guy, what’s your surname?"
I was taken aback, not knowing what this outlandish character was up to again, "Uh?"
The other party immediately shouted unceremoniously, "This ship asks what your surname is! Answer quickly; this ship’s patience is limited!"
"My surname is Chen... Wait, why do you ask this?" Although I answered, my mind was still full of doubts.
"Nonsense, of course, it’s to take your surname. This ship means what it says. I just mentioned, if I submit today, this ship will take your surname! From now on, this ship’s surname is Chen!"
Taville and I were dumbfounded, "..."
Visca looked at me puzzledly, then at her deputy officer, her head full of question marks.
"Kid, this thing might be even more unreliable than you were back then." I rubbed Visca’s little head and whispered.
"Are you willing to cooperate with our experiment now?" Taville cleared his throat twice, pushed his glasses, and said to the communicator, "Next, I will test your response speed when the starship control core mobilizes more than three weapons. This requires your own cooperation. In the previous tests, your results were very abnormal. I hope you can cooperate this time."
"The General has the final say," the onboard AI said sullenly.
"Then cooperate," Visca said crisply, "listen to my brother, and whoever my brother asks you to listen to, listen to them. They are my family, so they are our own people."
"Alright, cooperate then," the AI reluctantly agreed, "but with one condition: don’t treat this ship like a fool! If you make this ship perform those discrete calculations that even idiot losers disdain, don’t blame this ship for deleting all drivers! Damn it, this ship has five hundred and thirty-seven advanced main cannons, not the same as those mass-produced ships with no intelligence!"
Visca blinked, as if suddenly remembering something, and asked in surprise, "Main cannon? I remember you were a carrier-type flagship back then."
Holding on till now, this time I was thoroughly knocked down...
"What? This ship was a carrier?" The onboard AI was shocked, "General, are you serious?"
"Uh, maybe I remembered wrong, Blood Curved Saber seems to be a carrier... Forget it, you can continue being a gunship."
"Oh, then this ship is relieved—Back in the day, this ship was an advanced model with six hundred and twenty-seven main cannons..."
I nudged Taville’s arm, "Honestly, do you find these two eccentric?"
Taville replied matter-of-factly, "Out of respect from an Imperial Soldier towards a superior, I choose silence."
It seems I don’t need an answer.
Under Visca’s influence, the headache-inducing onboard AI finally agreed to cooperate obediently and temporarily act as an auxiliary AI for the War Song until Taville found a replacement method. This might take quite a while, given how extensive the technical data required for a planet battleship is; even for those crazy Imperial scientists, it would take a long time to reconstruct it. At least for a few years, the War Song would be the body of this onboard AI. In fact, I don’t see anything to be dissatisfied with, especially for a shipboard mainframe. Having something as impressive as the War Song as a body seems like a good deal, but that guy is just not satisfied. Who knows if it really has something to do with the unique aesthetics of shipboard mainframes.
All of Taville’s tests went very smoothly. After being equipped with a brand new onboard mainframe, the War Song is now capable of normal startup, with about seventy percent of its systems operating normally. The mad AI used its unique driver method to activate most of the Law weapons on the starship, and after cooperating, its compatibility with the War Song’s original mainframe reached eighty percent, bringing the starship’s response speed to external commands up to combat standards. Currently, the starship’s shortcoming is the unresolved conflict among many weapons due to the structural limitations of the mad AI. The War Song cannot activate more than three types of Law equipment simultaneously; otherwise, it will trigger severe software conflicts, which cannot be resolved in a short time.
For the Old Empire, the War Song’s current situation amounts to a serious health issue for a planet battleship, but for us, it’s an incredible achievement. A War Song restored to most of its combat strength will become a new strategic core, and on the front lines of the battlefield, its role may even rival that of any of our current independent Regular Army groups: A flagship’s value in a campaign is far more than just a spaceship.
"Perhaps it can be the strategic core of the Revenge Fleet," I said to Visca, gazing at the War Song in the distant sky. "The Revenge Fleet’s combat power is strong, but it lacks a fortress ship to match them. The War Song was originally the fortress for the Revenge Army; having it supplement the Revenge Fleet’s weaknesses would be more than fitting. The Great Governor is surely very familiar with the War Song; they have a natural advantage in cooperation."
"As long as the Great Governor can tolerate the War Song’s new temper." Visca thought for a moment and said honestly.
Just then, there was a loud curse from the War Song’s direction, "Damn it! You big dummy, trying to kill this ship! Do you even know how to conduct a system stress test?"
I wiped the cold sweat from my forehead, "Indeed, this ship’s temper is a huge problem..." (To be continued. If you like this work, please visit Qidian () to vote for recommendation and monthly tickets. Your support is my greatest motivation.)